He held on. The dolphin and all the rest of its pod turned and swam out to sea, and still he held on. This is it, he thought. Then he remembered that they were air-breathers too. It was going to be all right.

Looking back on The Return, it really brings to mind a lightning bolt. The way it branches off in dozens of different paths seeking the most efficient route to the ground before a single one finally finds it and all the other paths simply disappear.

I'm really looking forward to re-watching this series when I get the time. Though I had seen a few of his movies, I hadn't had any real interest in Lynch before I decided to binge on his stuff before watching this series. I started with the original Twin Peaks series and quickly got hooked, then followed it Fire Walk With Me, then his other features. I got to say, it was one of the most pleasurable cinematic excursions I've ever been on. My dreams had never been so vivid.

I'm still trying to make sense of the The Return, but I'm tending to think that the whole thing is really taking place in Coop's subconsciousness. I think this has been the case right off the bat from the beginning of the original series to a certain degree. At the center of it all we have something truly horrific taking place: the continued rape and ultimate murder of a daughter at the hands of her father. This is something that actually happens in the world. It's something that Coop encounters on a regular basis as an FBI agent. At a point he can no longer simply be the indifferent investigator and tries to cope with how such horrifically inexplicable things can happen and what we watch in Twin Peaks is the attempt by his subconsciousness to rationalize the utterly irrational. It conjures up this elaborate fantasy of the Black Lodge etc., as well as all the rest. For the most part, what we're watching throughout this series is the hamster wheel in Coop's mind trying to explain what is really not explainable, and along the way we see many other aspects of his subconsciousness that reveal other things about Coop. But everything has meaning.

He held on. The dolphin and all the rest of its pod turned and swam out to sea, and still he held on. This is it, he thought. Then he remembered that they were air-breathers too. It was going to be all right.

I really like that it's getting this level of recognition. Forget the whole debate about film versus TV, there's no denying that TPTR was pure cinema. I think this is absolutely well deserved, and if it encourages Alamo to screen the whole 18 hours in one sitting so much the better.

He held on. The dolphin and all the rest of its pod turned and swam out to sea, and still he held on. This is it, he thought. Then he remembered that they were air-breathers too. It was going to be all right.

I still disagree. There were certainly several episodes unlike anything we've ever seen on TV, but this was definitely an 18+ hour season of serialized television. It represents an immaturity in the press that they feel more comfortable calling it a movie. "Oh, this wasn't really a TV show, it just happened to air on TV." This succeeded in elevating the medium — recategorizing it denies that accomplishment.

I still disagree. There were certainly several episodes unlike anything we've ever seen on TV, but this was definitely an 18+ hour season of serialized television. It represents an immaturity in the press that they feel more comfortable calling it a movie. "Oh, this wasn't really a TV show, it just happened to air on TV." This succeeded in elevating the medium — recategorizing it denies that accomplishment.

It doesn't really feel like serialised TV, though. It felt very obvious to me that it was an eighteen hour movie script that had been chopped up into episodic hours in the edit.

I wouldn't condone putting it as number 1 on a top films list though - it just leads to a slippery slope of classification, and ultimately it did air on TV.

berlin alexanderplatz and out 1 both aired on tv and are considered holy grails of cinema. pretty sure anytime someone mentions fanny and alexander as a favorite film, they're talking about the full length cut that aired on tv. oj: made in america made several best films lists last year, that aired on tv.

at any rate, i don't see a point in feeling strongly about it one way or the other. if you want to list a season or episode of tv on your favorite films of the year, go for it. if you don't want, don't. who gives a shit? doesn't listing a season of tv as a film inherently acknowledge its accomplishment as a tv series? television these days seems to be the medium held in higher esteem, anyway. again, who cares?

twin peaks: the return will be at the top of my best films of 2017 list, as it was the best work of image and sound to be released this year, and by an insanely large margin. it's the finnigans wake of cinema. if you feel the same way but refuse to categorize it as a film, cool. it literally doesn't matter.

also the final season of the leftovers wouldn't have been eligible because it was fucking garbage. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯